


Brooding

by sungabraverday



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person, Post - Deathly Hallows, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-15
Updated: 2009-06-15
Packaged: 2017-11-07 19:11:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/sungabraverday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna chooses to remember after the end of the Wizarding War. It was all so much more colourful back then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brooding

They tell you not to do this. Stop brooding, they say, it doesn’t change anything. The past will stay the same.

You know all of that; you’re a Ravenclaw, that’s what you do, you know things.

You just don’t want to let go.

You rather like the past, when everything seemed more vivid. After that dungeon, those screams, nothing seems quite right anymore. Like the colour simply washed out, leaving everything tinted grey. Like some part of the world, some part of you is missing. You think you must have left it in those dungeons.

Before, you thought it was just the gloom of war tainting your view. But the war is over. Good triumphed over evil. Harry lived. Things still have a little less than was there before. So you’d rather not think of now. Instead you think of the past.

The past was bittersweet. Your mother died, even though you loved her. Your father loved you. You went to school; you did well enough in your classes. You read the Quibbler every month, and went searching for Crumple-Horned Snorkaks. You avoided Nargles and Wrackspurts, and your classmates called you Loony. Eventually, you made friends.

You look at the painting on your wall. Neville, Ginny, Harry, Ron, and Hermione – they all look paler than they should. The life that was in them before isn’t there anymore. The gold ink chains are peeling, and you know you won’t fix them the way you always did before. You know that the people you painted aren’t the same; the people you painted so happily are gone now.  
You talk to Harry the most. Just yesterday he came by. He told you that you should be brave and put the past behind you. You tried to explain. He said that maybe if the past wasn’t in the way, the present, the future would look more real to you. You said it didn’t work like that. He said to be brave and then he left.

You think that brooding is brave. To stay in the memories, which are painful, to force yourself through them over and over again – you can’t think of anything braver.

You remember when the bravest Gryffindor you know did nothing but brood about his godfather’s death, about whether he could have prevented it. You had wished he wouldn’t then, but you didn’t understand. Now you wish he would remember that so he would join you and understand.  
You wish that the future held something to give it the colour that the past held.

You wish that all those people weren’t dead. You know you can’t change the past, that history is history, but you still wish they hadn’t died. Fred Weasley, Dobby, Professor Lupin, Colin Creevey, Sirius Black, Professor Moody, Professor Dumbledore, almost even Bellatrix Lestrange and Professor Snape and the other Death Eaters, because they can’t have been all bad really. You think you’ll draw the line at Voldemort though.

You wonder if you might have been able to change things, back then. You think you might have given yourself up if it would have saved them. You know Harry would have – did – and you think you might too. It would have been the right thing to do.

You can’t remember the last time you read the Quibbler and it seemed real. You don’t think about Crumple-Horned Snorkaks, Wrackspurts, or Nargles, as anything but the past. They’re a part of the colour of the past, and you don’t know if you want them to lose their colour too by coming into the now.

And so you sit on your couch and think about it all. And you think, and you forget about everything else. And you don’t mind at all.

They say you’re destroying yourself, but you don’t see it. You’re preserving yourself. They can move on. You’re giving them this chance – they can live, and you’ll remember, and everything will turn out well.  



End file.
